Felicia Shloss - February 9, 1983

Gesperre

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Now can you just describe toward the end of the ghetto--what it was like on the streets in the ghetto?

On the streets in the ghetto uh, as I told you before they were catching people to work--catching people and sending them out uh, to the unknown--nobody knew where. I was once at my uh, managers house uh, and the son came in and he said, "They catch only Jews." And he didn't feel that he was a Jew, cause his father was a manager and his uh, aunt and uncle was a Kripo--that's kriminal po...police. They were managers there. I used to take whole uh, pots, whole pots of food over there and they wanted to test taste it that the food was good. I had to do it, if I wouldn't do it, you know, they would kill me, I wouldn't be alive. Uh, once a week or something, they took potatoes, and--very tasty food--I never tasted, I wouldn't dare do that. But I used to carry it, a big pot of--to that the Kripo, to that uh, his name was ???. I don't think...

Polish kriminal police? Or were they Germans?

German!

German.

There wasn't any Polish at that time. But Roboski was a po--polish Jew or a German Jew from Poznan, from Poma...Pomeranian Gdynia or some place. And there were little--I don't know, advanced, they could speak the German well with them. They had those better jobs in the ghetto. And uh, it was um, you had to hide yourself, you couldn't even walk in the streets. You couldn't--there was uh, wires, but you couldn't go close to those wires. You would be killed.

Were there any deportations out of the city during the...

Yes um, 1942, as I told you. They uh, took out the sick and children and elderly people. They took them out--nobody knew where. They took them out and they brought in people from smaller towns.

When they emptied the hospital, what was that called?

Uh...

Gesperre?

Uh, yeah, the Gesperre. And uh, I think it was in the summer of 1942. And they uh, took out the people from that hospital. I was sitting in that kitchen. All of a sudden--the windows were open, it was the summer time--people in pajamas came through the window. They didn't look for a door; they just jumped over the window. And we asked, "What's going on?" And they said, "The Germans are here with trucks and taking out sick people." And we faced the hospital on the back side, so I guess some people saved themselves and came to our--to that kitchen. And uh, right away in the same afternoon we all went home. And at that time was the week of Gesperre. They took out all the people--sick and left only the strong and the ones who will be able to work.

Do you think that um, the ghetto lasted so long because it was...

Because it was profitable...

Profitable.

...profitable for them. Yeah. My brother hid my sister, because my sister was at that time, I think, twelve-years-old and she wouldn't--so he hid her, and then afterwards they wouldn't give her any food--no ration cards. So she was working and making tablecloths and that was for export too, for the Germans. She was from forty--yeah, she was there for two, three years working in that uh, I forgot the name of the place--the most beautiful tablecloths. Kids were sitting--ten, twelve-years-old--for uh, twelve hours a day and knitting tablecloths for export for Germany. And uh, textile and um, everything that they could do, they--we did for the Germans and that's why they gave us some food. The Germans wouldn't give you any food if you wouldn't produce.